1. Technical Field
The invention relates to methods and apparatus for integrating various nutritional supplements, and in particular to methods and apparatus for precisely weighing and integrating the supplements for packaging, shipment and subsequent blending with livestock feed grain in a batch blending apparatus by a feed manufacturer.
2. Background Information
As is the case with most other sciences and arts, agriculture is becoming increasingly sophisticated. The typical farmer must be knowledgeable in many technical matters in order to run a profitable business. One such technical matter relates to the need for supplementing the diet of his/her livestock with various vitamins and minerals, such as salt, calcium, phosphorus, etc., to produce larger and healthier animals.
The method currently employed for incorporating dietary supplements into livestock feed grain begins with the step of the manufacturer of the vitamin and mineral supplements typically mixing a given formulation of the vitamins and minerals in a large batch of approximately four tons. More particularly, the multiple components of a particular vitamin and mineral composition are individually measured and then placed in a large drum having flights or other means therein for mixing the vitamins and minerals. The drum then is rotated for several minutes to thoroughly mix the supplements, afterwhich the drum is stopped and the composition contained therein is packaged in individual, usually 50 pound bags. It is to be understood that the terms "mix" and "blend", as used herein, connote a more thorough combining of elements than does the term "integrate". More particularly, as used herein, the terms mix and blend mean to combine into a generally uniform whole, while integrate means to combine, but not necessarily to the degree whereby uniformity is achieved. This resulting "pre-mix" of vitamins and minerals then is shipped either to a farm having its own mixing facility or to a feed plant having a mixing facility. An appropriate number of bags of the vitamin and mineral pre-mix then is added to approximately one ton of livestock feed, which may comprise several different grains such as corn and beans. The feed and pre-mix then are thoroughly blended or mixed in any suitable batch blending apparatus which includes vertical and horizontal-type blenders. The resulting nutritionally supplemented feed grain then is placed in the livestock feeders.
Although the above-described method is satisfactory for producing a well-mixed livestock feed containing various grain meals and vitamins and minerals, a certain duplication of effort is inherent in this method. Such duplication of effort is economically inefficient and wasteful, which is unacceptable especially in view of the precarious economic situation which many farmers find themselves in today. More specifically, pre-mixing of the vitamins and minerals is an unnecessary step toward delivering satisfactory nutritional supplements to farmers and feed manufacturing plants. That is, since farmers and feed manufacturing plants will ultimately mix the nutritional supplements with the feed grains anyway, the step of pre-mixing the vitamins and minerals is unnecessary.
In addition, the practice of pre-mixing nutritional supplements in batch form is inefficient due to the fact that workers stand idle during the time that the large drum containing a four ton batch of a supplement formulation is mixing. Only when the contents of the conventional batch mixer have been completely discharged and recharged by way of manual and mechanical inputs may the mixing process resume. Moreover, the power required to rotate a drum containing four tons of vitamins and minerals is substantial and costly. Also, the type of mixing equipment needed to blend such large batches of supplements does not lend itself well to mixing "special request" supplement formulations and the like in small batches, so that such formulations must be prepared separately at increased cost to the purchaser. Finally, finished inventory costs are increased since conventional batch mixing techniques are applied efficiently only to full mixer load batches. This results in residual inventories of certain formulations for sometimes extended periods in anticipation of future need.
Although the uniform appearance of the pre-mixed nutritional supplements may be pleasing to the end user thereof, it is much more important to produce a supplement formulation in which the various vitamins and minerals are precisely weighed and proportioned. Although the 4 ton batch of a given supplement formulation may be precisely weighed and proportioned when the vitamins and minerals are placed in the mixing drum, many of the individual packages of the supplement formulation will have vitamin and mineral proportions which differ in varying degrees from the intended batch proportion. This is because it is impossible to mix such a large batch so that each portion thereof contains exactly the same proportion of vitamins and minerals.
There is no known prior art method and apparatus for integrating various vitamin and mineral supplements, in which the method and apparatus provide for precisely weighing and integrating exactly the same proportion of vitamins and minerals into each package of a particular supplement formulation, for subsequent blending with livestock feed grain in a batch blending apparatus by a feed manufacturer.